So you have 500 Facebook fans but only 100 saw your post? Grrrrr. It may not be your fault, but it is your problem.

Facebook recently made some changes to clean up people’s news feeds…to keep them from being inundated by news they asked to see! Rather than unliking or clicking that little X to hide, Facebook has just decided to prevent posts from showing up in the first place.

What can be done?

Pay to play. You can promote a post on Facebook, to reach your fans—or even your fans’ friends. I am personally saddened by this. We aren’t huge companies trying to advertise; we’re bloggers trying to share information with like-minded folk. But the feature’s there, and if you’ve got a big announcement, it might be worth it for you. You’ve probably seen the little drop-down to promote. If you click on it, there’ll be a number of options, and $5 or $10 will make sure your post finds its way to a bunch more people.

Master the organic system. Facebook will continue to show posts in news feeds of fans who interact regularly with you. Your posts will also show up for more people if they are engaged with early. Most of the marketing information out there suggests a few general guidelines to make the most of your posts:

Short posts with pictures and a call to action (What’s your favorite seitan recipe? Caption this photo!) receive the most attention and engagement.

Learn what time your fans are most active. For some it’s Saturday night, for others Sunday around noon—experiment a little and see what happens.

Don’t post too often. More than two a day and you could make your fans feel spammed, then you can be met with resistance to engage, unliked, or hidden.